Probing the neutrino mass ordering with KM3NeT-ORCA: Analysis and perspectives
Abstract
The discrimination of the two possible options for the neutrino mass ordering (normal or inverted) is a major goal for current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. Such goal might be reached by observing high-statistics energy-angle spectra of events induced by atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos propagating in the Earth matter. Large volume water-Cherenkov detectors envisaged to this purpose include the so-called KM3NeT-ORCA project (in seawater) and the IceCube-PINGU project (in ice). Building upon a previous work focused on PINGU, we study in detail the effects of various systematic uncertainties on the ORCA sensitivity to the mass ordering, for the reference configuration with 9 m vertical spacing. We point out the need to control spectral shape uncertainties at the percent level, the effects of better priors on the theta-23 mixing parameter, and the benefits of an improved flavor identification in reconstructed ORCA events.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1708.03022,
title = {Probing the neutrino mass ordering with KM3NeT-ORCA: Analysis and perspectives},
author = {Francesco Capozzi and Eligio Lisi and Antonio Marrone},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.03022},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
15 pages, including 7 figures. A few paragraphs and references added. Invited contribution to appear in the JPG Focus Issue on "Neutrino Mass and Mass Ordering"